eyes with which, not only
to see, but to feel. To see is something; Mr. Steer also feels for what
he sees; and this emotion is the point of departure for his pictures.
That he seems almost completely to have lost such power as he ever
had of giving to his vision a coherent and self-supporting form is
unfortunate; still, he does convey to us some modicum of the thrill
provoked in him by his vision of Dover Harbour.

Those thoughtful young men, on the other hand, whose works have been
causing such a commotion might almost as well have been blind. They seem
to have seen nothing; at any rate, they have not reacted to what they
saw in that particular way in which visual artists react. They are not
expressing what they feel for something that has moved them as artists,
but, rather, what they think about something that has horrified them
as men. Their pictures depart, not from a visual sensation, but from a
moral conviction. So, naturally enough, what they produce is mere "arty"
anecdote. This, perhaps, is the secret of their success--their success,
I mean, with the cultivated public. Those terrible young fellows
who were feared to be artists turn out after all to be innocent
Pre-Raphaelites. They leave Burlington House without a stain upon their
characters.

This is plain speaking; how else should a critic, who believes that he
has diagnosed the disease, convince a modern patient of his parlous
state? To just hint a fault and hesitate dislike (not Pope, but I split
that infinitive) is regarded nowadays merely as a sign of a base,
compromising spirit; or not regarded at all. Artists, especially in
England, cannot away with qualified praise or blame: and if they insist
on all or nothing I can but offer them the latter. Nevertheless, I must
assert, for my own satisfaction, that in many even of our most imperial
artists, in the brothers Spenser and the brothers Nash, in Mr. Lewis,
Mr. Roberts, Mr. Bomberg, and Mr. Lamb, I discover plenty of ability;
only I cannot help fancying that they may have mistaken the nature of
their gifts. Were they really born to be painters? I wonder. But of this
I am sure: their friends merely make them look silly by comparing them
with contemporary French masters, or even with Lionardo da Vinci.

Wilcoxism is a terrible disease because it slowly but surely eats away
our sense of imperfection, our desire for improvement, and our power
of self-criticism. Modesty and knowledge are the best antidotes; a